The use of wearable medical technology has become less of a hypothetical concept and more of a reality as industry representatives begin to experiment with the idea. Intel and the Michael J. Fox Foundation have joined forces to conduct a study using smartwatches to track the progression of Parkinson’s disease.
Intel’s involvement began with a suggestion from former Intel CEO Andy Grove, who has suffered from Parkinson’s over the past 14 years. Grove proposed the idea of using Intel’s analytics technology to “quantify diagnosis, symptoms, and treatment of the disease.”
The study will include thousands of patients to be compared against a control group. Participants will wear a smartwatch that produces over 300 observations per second to gather real-time data on the disease, which will be collected, stored, and managed within Intel’s analytics platform. As explained by Todd Sherer, CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, “our intention is to capture and objectively measure patients’ actual experience of disease, with unprecedented implications for Parkinson’s drug development, diagnosis, and treatment.”
To read Elizabeth Dwoskin’s article in the Wall Street Journal, click here.
To read Stacy Lawrence’s article on Fierce Medical Devices, click here.